


The Marauders

by Pegasus_Eridana



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-25
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 11:50:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/735306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pegasus_Eridana/pseuds/Pegasus_Eridana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhat AU version of Hogwarts during the Marauders' time there. I initially started writing this as a birthday present for a friend, and it is my first fanfic, so while comments and feedback are gratefully received, please be nice! <br/>Disclaimer: much as I would love to, I don't own the work of JK Rowling, I have merely plundered her universe in order to satisfy my fangirl tendencies, not for profit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Gina sat nervously on the Hogwarts Express, trying desperately not to catch anyone’s eye. It was as if the fates had conspired against her this morning; she’d overslept, scalded herself with hot tea, and had almost missed the train when a group of Muggles had stopped to consult their map in front of the archway to Platform 9¾. As a result, by the time she had managed to get onto the platform and said goodbye to her parents, most of the compartments on the train had been filled and she had been forced to take the one seat that was left, in a compartment with Peter Pettigrew, James Potter, Remus Lupin…and Sirius Black.   
Sirius. Even the name was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard; knowing that he was near her was enough to make her insides resemble the consistency of a Flobberworm, and now he was actually sitting opposite her, gazing around with those haughty eyes which nevertheless snapped with excitement at the prospect of returning to Hogwarts.   
This was one of those times, Gina reflected sourly, where an Invisibility Cloak would have been an extremely useful possession. She could have walked in unnoticed and sat out the journey quietly. As it was, she had stumbled into the compartment, blushing furiously, muttering, “D’you mind if I sit here? Everywhere else is full.” Potter and Black had nodded, not really looking at her, Pettigrew had ignored her. Only Remus Lupin, a handsome if somewhat pale and tired-looking boy, had looked up from his book, smiled at her, and said, “Yes, of course.”  
So here she was, sitting in a compartment with three extremely good-looking people, one of whom was probably the most beautiful person in the world, and yet she was wishing fervently that she was anywhere else, in any other compartment…or at least that she could perform some kind of anti-blushing charm and drink some form of confidence-boosting potion, then this might not be so intensely uncomfortable. None of the others seemed bothered. Pettigrew, Potter and Sirius were playing Exploding Snap very loudly and jubilantly; Lupin was absorbed in his book, something about how werewolves were misunderstood. He seemed to feel her gaze upon him, pulled his mind away from his book, and asked Gina if she’d had a nice holiday. Grateful for this respite from silent embarrassment, she replied eagerly and started chatting to Lupin. When the talk turned to Quidditch, Gina saw out of the corner of her eye that James and Sirius had stopped their game and were listening to the conversation.   
“So who do you support?” Lupin asked her.   
“Tottenham Twisters,” she replied, trying desperately to appear unconcerned that James and Sirius were watching her for her answer. James snorted, but Sirius sat up. “Me, too” he said, grinning at her. That was enough to make her heart and lungs twist themselves into intriguing positions whilst her stomach ended up next to her collarbone. “Yeah?” She said, trying to sound nonchalant but succeeding only in making her voice higher-pitched than usual. “Who’s your favourite player?”  
“Bailey. He’s the best Seeker they’ve had in years. What about you?”   
“I like Lennox. Chasers are so underrated; I think it’s too easy to give Seekers all the glory.”  
Sirius shot a lazy grin at James. “Hear that, Potter? She thinks you don’t deserve your reputation.” Gina was mortified. “No, no I didn’t mean that about you, of course, you’re a great Seeker, I just meant in general…” she trailed off. James and Sirius were both staring at her with big grins on their faces. Lupin intervened. “Leave her alone, she doesn’t realise you’re teasing her.” Gina shot him a thankful glance then turned to answer as James, giving her an appraising look, said, “Hawkins, isn’t it?” Gina nodded. “Do you play Quidditch at all?” She nodded again. “What position?”  
“Chaser, mostly.”  
James grimaced. “Figures. Well look, Jason Spinnet and Rob Johnson left last year and they were Chasers, so we’ll be holding tryouts for replacements – you should come along.”  
Gina couldn’t believe her ears. “I will – thanks.”   
Most of the rest of the journey passed quickly, with conversation flowing much more easily. Admittedly, it was mostly Lupin and James who talked directly to her, but she told herself that Sirius was probably just tired or had other things on his mind. It was certainly true that he sat and listened more than he talked.   
Gina was almost sorry when the train slid to a halt. They all shifted, starting to clear up their Chocolate Frog wrappers and collect their belongings. Gina had a new owl who she had named Zeus because of his black plumage, snapping eyes and bad temper. However, before any of them could leave the compartment, the door flew open and Penny rushed in.   
“Gina, where have you been, I’ve been looking all over for you…”she stopped, realising who Gina was with. Having been Gina’s best friend since their first year, she was aware of the Sirius situation, and in fact entertained her own feelings for Lupin. That would explain, thought Gina, why she’s gone a little pink. She observed with interest that Lupin had suddenly become paler, and was needlessly fussing with his robes and pretending to laugh at something James had said, before turning and saying,  
“Oh hi Penny, didn’t see you there – how did you find patrolling? Weird this prefect thing, isn’t it?”  
“Yeah, yeah it is.” She replied somewhat breathlessly. They both gave uncomfortable laughs before Lupin said,   
“So, do you think we should go on ahead to help with the, um, unloading of, er, people and, uh, trunks and things?”  
“Good idea.” Penny replied straightaway, “We wouldn’t want them to think we’re lazy or anything.” They both went out of the compartment, Lupin gallantly carrying Penny’s magnificent bronze-coloured owl, Orion.   
Gina chuckled to herself before being seized by the fervent hope that she wasn’t that obvious towards Sirius and the upsetting thought that she couldn’t be at all sure that she was better at concealing her feelings. She, Sirius, James and Pettigrew all stood awkwardly for a moment before Sirius said, “So…we’ll probably be seeing you around, then – catch you later,” and left the compartment. James gave Gina a swift smile and followed him. Pettigrew brought up the rear without so much as a glance at Gina. She watched him go with a faint feeling of distaste. I wonder what Sirius and the others see in him? She thought to herself. A door slamming brought her to her senses, and she hurried off the train.


	2. Chapter 2

A few weeks later, Gina was standing nervously on the Quidditch pitch, waiting for her name to be called. The current team, two Chasers short, hovered around, ready to start playing again. Penny, the only Chaser left on the team, was nearby, giving Gina encouraging smiles every now and then. James Potter was flying round the stadium, performing seemingly effortless loop-the-loops and dives. All Gina’s kinder feelings towards him had vanished; she now viewed him resentfully as the show-off who made everyone around him look like they were flying slowly and poorly. The Keeper, a Sixth Year Gina didn’t know, was hovering in front of the hoops, and the two Beaters were circling around the prospective Chasers. Finally Fred Priest, a Beater and the Captain, called out, “Gina Hadley and John Hopkinson” and Gina took to the air. She felt much better immediately. She caught the Quaffle from Penny and zoomed up the pitch towards the hoops, dodging a Bludger narrowly along the way. Before she knew it, she had scored 5 times and the team were all smiling their approval. She was accepted into the team without any deliberation, and when she landed Penny and James landed too, and came over.  
“I knew you could do it!” cried Penny hugging her.   
“Not bad Hadley,” James drawled. “maybe you’ll be taking some of that glory back for the Chasers…OUCH! What was that for?”  
“You deserved it!” said Penny, who had given him a hard shove, “You as good as said you think you’re the only one on the team who people think is worth anything and you’re stupid enough to believe it, and your ego has reached frankly astonishing proportions, and then you have the nerve to ask me why Lily Evans won’t go out with you! I swear, James Potter, sometimes you make me want to take that Quaffle and shove it up your…”  
Thank fully at that moment she was interrupted by Sirius (who Gina realised with a jolt must have been watching from the stands) who loped over with an easy grace, turned to Gina and said: “You fly really well – riding a Shooting Star, are you? That’s a decent broom.”   
The broomstick talk carried them back to the castle, where James and Sirius went off, saying they had something they needed to work on with Lupin and Pettigrew. Gina and Penny walked on, discussing possible double meanings of boys who came over to complement one’s broomstick. Before long, however, they were caught up by a girl with red hair and startlingly green eyes.   
“Have you seen Severus Snape anywhere? We were supposed to be helping each other with that Potions essay – you know, the one about the different uses of griffin feathers in potion-making – but he hasn’t turned up.” She sounded more annoyed than anything else. “Oh, I bet he’s hanging around with his stupid Slytherin group again – Avery and the rest. I was so glad when that Malfoy toad left (joining You-Know-Who I’ll bet), but it doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference.”  
Penny and Gina replied in the negative and ended up accompanying Lily to the Library to finish the essay. As Lily was generally acknowledged as being one of the best students in the year, particularly in Potions (where she was only bested by Snape), both Gina and Penny felt this had worked out to their advantage.

 

The weeks flew by for Gina faster than they ever had before. What with the vastly increased workload (it was O.W.L year after all) and the new pressures of Quidditch practice, Gina had very little time or energy to think about anything other than essays or flying. In the weeks running up to the first Quidditch match of the season (Griffindor versus Ravenclaw), even work took second place as the team practiced almost every day. Gina sometimes wondered, hoe she would have managed without Penny and Lily. The tree of them had formed an informal study group: Lily was best at Potions and Transfiguration, Penny was always top of the class in Defence Against the Dark Arts, Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology and Gina excelled at Charms and Astronomy. This meant that the work they were all set was much more manageable and finished more quickly. Not everyone was coping so well. James Potter was almost matching Lupin’s pale face for tiredness – although Gina suspected that James was not exerting himself too much and would have been in a much worse condition had it not been for Lupin’s help and the remarkable similarities between some of James’ work and Sirius’.   
On the evening before the Quidditch match Penny, Gina and Lily were grouped around the fire in the common room, attempting to finish a Transfiguration essay for Professor McGonagall. Gina threw down her pen in frustration.   
“It’s hopeless, I can’t concentrate. Listen to what I’ve just written: `In order for a witch or wizard to become an Animagus, they must firstly take the Quaffle and put it through the hoops at the end…` It’s ridiculous, and the worst thing is that tomorrow I’ll probably only be able to think about the theory behind becoming and Animagus and play so badly I’ll be kicked off the team!”  
“Don’t be silly,” said Penny soothingly, “the waiting is the worst part. As soon as you start flying and scoring goals you’ll wonder what you were worrying about.”  
“But what if I don’t score goals?” replied Gina, glaring at a bunch of First Years who were playing wizard chess with accompanying hoots of encouragement. “What if I drop the Quaffle every time it’s passed to me, or I throw it through the wrong hoops, or I fall off my broom, or…”  
“You won’t do any of that stuff,” said an amused voice behind them. “For one thing you could never have got onto the team in the first place if you were that bad, and for another I know for a fact you’re not that bad because I was watching you at the tryouts and you’ve got talent, Hadley, believe it or not.” And with that, Sirius gave her one of his heart-stopping smiles and turned to rejoin James and Lupin in the corner. Gina was suddenly possessed by the certainty that if she wanted to now she could fight and defeat a dragon and then win this match single-handed – she could probably make the national team, the way she was feeling right now.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, Gina made her way into the Great Hall. She had just sat down and pulled a rack of toast towards her when she saw Penny and Lupin at the other end of the Hall. They were standing very close together, and Penny was smiling up into Lupin’s face. Gina was so interested in what was going to happen next that she didn’t see Sirius come up behind her and sit down next to her. When she did see him, she started so violently that half her piece of toast got crumbled into her orange juice. He grinned. She blushed.   
“I just came to wish you luck in the match today,” he said quietly. “Don’t worry about the crowd or the commentary or anything – just score goals and avoid the Bludgers.”  
“Telling me how to play Quidditch now, Black?”  
His eyes sparkled wickedly. “Well we wouldn’t want that pretty face to get damaged by a Bludger, now, would we? I’ll be in the stands.” He winked and sauntered off. Gina felt a surge of elation which quickly evaporated as she saw people starting to move from the Great Hall towards the Quidditch pitch.  
As the team walked onto the pitch to tumultuous applause, Penny caught up with Gina and caught her by the elbow.   
“Feeling OK?”  
“Yeah, actually.” Gina replied, a certain memory from breakfast time emitting a warm glow in her stomach. “I saw you talking to Lupin. Wishing you luck, was he?”  
“Yes, he…yes.” said Penny, a little lamely. There was no time for more conversation; the two teams had met in the middle of the pitch and the referee, Madam Falcon, was telling the two Captains to step forwards and shake hands, then the whistle blew and they took to the air. It was a fine, clear, autumn day, and Gina felt as if she had left her nerves back on the ground and she soared into the air, hearing the yells and cheers from the crowd below. She went straight into action, catching the Quaffle when Davidson, a Ravenclaw Chaser, got hit by a Bludger. Gina sped up the pitch, the wind whistling in her ears, everything around her blurring as she focused on the hoops. As she approached, everything seemed to slow down. She saw another Bludger coming from her left and avoided it, saw the Ravenclaw Keeper hovering in the middle of the three hoops, and then suddenly, miraculously, saw her opening. It was all over in the blink of an eye, as she zoomed away from the goal, the world around her refocused and she heard the crowd chanting her name, her teammates cheering for her; the commentator, a Griffindor Seventh Year called Leopold Jordan, shouting, “AND GRIFFINDOR TAKE THE LEAD, TEN POINTS TO ZERO, SCORED BY GINA HADLEY, JASON SPINNET’S REPLACEMENT…”   
From then on, Griffindor could do no wrong. It seemed the three Chasers could read each others’ minds, passing to each other fluidly and rarely letting the other team’s Chasers touch the Quaffle, let alone score with it. For Gina it passed in a blur of adrenaline, punctuated by snippets of commentary (“AND HADLEY SCORES AGAIN, WHAT A FIND SHE’S TURNING OUT TO BE…”), and it seemed the Griffindor Chasers only stopped scoring goals when James rose triumphantly above the rest of the players holding aloft the Snitch.   
“AND GRIFFINDOR WIN FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY POINTS TO EIGHTY! WHAT A MATCH THAT WAS – FRANKLY I FEEL RUDE JUST SPEAKING IN THE PRESENCE OF SUCH TALENT BUT WHAT THE HELL I’M GOING TO ANYWAY…”  
Gina heard no more, she was surrounded by cheering people in red and gold, cheering hoarsely herself.   
“Told you so.” said a smug voice behind her. Sirius smirked at her, and she had to smile back. James came over, shaking his head in mock sorrow.  
“I confess, you have taken the glory back to where it belongs – how can I, a poor Seeker, ever hope to match the skill and prowess which you Chasers have just demonstrated?”  
“Stop teasing her.” said Sirius, giving her a slightly awkward one-armed hug. This combined with the fact that he was standing up for her made Gina’s heart stop momentarily, but she hoped that in the general melee no-one had noticed. 

 

The next day in Transfiguration after Professor McGonagall had congratulated Gina, Penny and James on their performance in the match, she started handing back the essays on Animagi. When she got to James and Sirius, she paused.   
“I was particularly impressed with yours Potter, and yours, Black. You’ve obviously put in extensive research about Animagi. Ten points apiece to Griffindor for exceptional effort put into these essays.”   
As Gina saw James and Sirius exchange smug looks, she persuaded herself that this incident was odd only because James and Sirius never usually got extra marks for effort in anything (except possibly for Defence Against the Dark Arts)rather than because of the specific topic for which they had received the points.  
When the Fifth Years returned to the common room there was a certain amount of excitement because the date for the first Hogsmede weekend had been set for three weeks before Christmas.   
“Marvellous!” said Penny, peering at the notice over Gina’s shoulder. “I need to stock up on Honeydukes’ stuff and it’ll be fun to visit the Shrieking Shack again; it’s always a good one to go to if you want to avoid a crowd – providing the snow’s not too bad, of course.”  
“I’ve never been much of a fan, myself,” Lupin said, evidently having heard what Penny was saying. “Very…atmospheric, yes, but it is a bit too depressing for my taste.” He and Penny moved off a little way, Penny obviously keen on discussing in what way the Shack might be haunted, Lupin apparently reluctant to give his views on the subject. He eventually managed to distract Penny by asking her if she wanted to go to Hogsmede with him – she accepted eagerly. Although Gina suspected he had always been planning to ask Penny out at some point (he was obviously crazy about her) , it had seemed a little like he had asked at that precise moment in order to change the subject, and had been caught off balance as a result. It was certainly true that he had blurted the question out a little more bluntly than his manner usually was. It was only in the girls’ dormitory that night, after an extensive session of squealing and going over all Lupin’s finer points (which were manifold) that Gina realised with a slight pang that this meant she would have to go alone into Hogsmede without her best friend. Not a big problem as a one-off, of course, but if this new relationship progressed (as it obviously had every intention of doing so) then in how many more things would she become the unwanted third wheel?

**Author's Note:**

> I shall try and get subsequent chapters up fairly regularly and quickly, if of course there is any desire for them :)


End file.
